


Neapolitan Pizza

by orphan_account



Series: Collected Tumblr Prompts [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fans & Fandom, Artist Steve Rogers, Conventions, Cosplay, Fanboy Bucky Barnes, M/M, Natasha Is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-16
Updated: 2014-10-16
Packaged: 2018-02-21 11:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2465849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'You're nervous, aren't you?'</p><p>Bucky rolled his eyes. ‘No.’</p><p>'Yes, you are,' Natasha teased. 'You're scared to meet your tumblr crush!'</p><p>'He doesn't have a tumblr,' he replied longsufferingly. 'Trust me, I'd know.'</p><p>She laughed. ‘But you don’t deny the crush bit?’ </p><p>(Prompt: <b>CELEBRITY/FAN AU</b>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Neapolitan Pizza

**Author's Note:**

> Just another one in the series of uploading awkward tumblr prompt fills. :D (This one is particularly silly)

'Oh my god, Bucky, how much longer is this going to take?' Natasha whined, throwing herself back on his bed and thumping her hands impatiently on the mattress.

Bucky glared at her. ‘Who the _hell_ is Bucky?’ he asked, and gestured at his costume. Even Natasha had to admit it was pretty well executed, even if she had no idea what it was meant to be. He was going to be _way_ too hot today though – it was a comfortable, sunny day, and he was wrapped up in black leather that Natasha knew (from how much Bucky went on talking about it) was modeled loosely after Russian World War Two uniforms. He was wearing a brownish-red fur collar, and a mask that covered most of his face, up to his eyes. His left harm was wrapped in medical tape. ‘For the last time,’ he continued in exasperation, ‘I’m the _Winter Soldier._ ’

'Is this your dumb nerd stuff again?' she asked, even though she knew without a doubt that it was.

Bucky bent over, picking up his painstakingly crafted thermoplastic arm, and held it out to her. She raised an eyebrow.

He rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, obviously. Now come on, gimme a hand. I can’t get this on myself.’

*

 _Hold Hands With the Devil_ was a webcomic. But it wasn’t _just_ a webcomic – like, it had been published and stuff. Bucky had both printed editions of it, the second being a special edition hard-cover copy that was too big to fit in his book-shelf, so sat instead on top of his dresser, pride of place, surrounded by other pieces of various paraphernalia. This version was filled with extra sketches and deleted panels, as well as pieces of handwritten commentary by the artist/author Steve Rogers.

Bucky knew every panel like the back of his hand, and the desktop background on his computer was currently one intricate, beautiful piece of cover art that Rogers had done on the third anniversary of the comic’s debut.

The comic, updating Wednesdays and Fridays, had been a huge part of Bucky’s life for almost exactly as long. He had been reading pretty much right from the start, falling in love almost immediately with the art style, and the characters, and the story. It was a kinda hard comic to pigeon-hole as it didn’t really prescribe to any exact genre, but that was one of the things he loved about it. Essentially, it followed a nameless protagonist just known as the Captain, and a Soviet assassin called the Winter Soldier, was set during World War Two, and traced the interweaving lives of the two characters in a sort of non-linear, magical realist way that spoke subtly of the underlying themes of destiny and duty, and misplaced patriotism, and where responsibility and loyalty intersected and diverged to draw the characters together and them break them apart over and over for what seemed destined to be an eternity.

The comic was rated explicit, and a good portion of it was admittedly pretty pornographic drawings of the two main characters fucking. But, and Bucky insisted this a lot, it was definitely _Art._

And today was an important day. Today was Comic-Con, and Steve Rogers was going to be there. He had made a blog post a few months ago about getting a spot in Artists’ Alley, and Bucky had booked his tickets not five minutes later.

What could he say? He idolized the guy.

*

'Oh, this is wonderful,' Natasha said dryly as they entered the convention. 'I love it here. I’m so glad you dragged me to this.’

She glanced over at Bucky, his face completely obscured by the black, sculpted mask, but eyes glittering with excitement and body basically thrumming even as he tried to hold himself up and look as cool as it was possible to look while dressed up as a webcomic character.

He was ignoring her, looking around in keen interest. Natasha sighed. She knew that as much as a godforsaken nerd Bucky was, he had never actually been to one of these things before, and he had worked for months and months on that costume, so she really ought to try to be a bit more open minded about this and at least let him have his fun.

'So are we finding this guy, or not?' she asked, dodging to duck under someone's giant plushie blue fox tail as they passed. Why on earth was that middle aged man dressed as a cartoon fox? She shuddered to think.

Bucky glanced over at her. ‘I think I’d like to have a bit of a look around first,’ he said offhandedly, but there was the slightest tremor to his voice that made the corner of her lips quirk up into a fond smirk that she fought to suppress.

'You're nervous, aren't you?'

Bucky rolled his eyes. ‘No.’

'Yes, you are,' she teased. 'You're scared to meet your tumblr crush!'

'He doesn't have a tumblr,' he replied longsufferingly. 'Trust me, I'd know.'

She laughed. ‘But you don’t deny the crush bit?’

They pushed through the crowd, and Natasha reached out to loop her fingers into her friend’s belt so they didn’t get separated, following after him as he pushed his way towards a merchandise stand. She couldn’t see much of his face, but she could see just enough of a pink tinge above the mask to tell that he was blushing. ‘Well, you know,’ he said. ‘I mean, it was thanks to that comic that I even realized I was bi. He kind of changed my life.’

'That is so—' Natasha started, but cut herself off from saying _'sad'_ at Bucky’s glare, and plastered on a wide smile. ‘Wonderful. That is so wonderful how the internet can bring people together like this, and teach us things about ourselves we never knew.’

'You are so full of shit, Natalia,' Bucky snorted, picking up a little Alien figurine off the shelf in front of them. 'How the hell is _this_ seventy-five dollars?’

Someone tapped softly on Natasha’s shoulder, and she turned around to come face to face with a boy who couldn’t be older than sixteen who was flushing bright red. ‘Excuse me,’ the boy said, ‘I just wanted to tell you that you would look _amazing_ if you did a Molotov Cocktease cosplay.’

Natasha blinked. ‘I have no idea what or who that is,’ she said. ‘But thank you.’

She turned away, catching Bucky’s eyes, which were crinkled with amusement. ‘He’s right you know,’ he said in a low voice, with a wink, and laughed as Natasha groaned loudly.

*

Steve Rogers had never posted any photos of himself online, as far as Bucky could tell (and he _had_ looked), so he didn’t really know who he was looking for when he wandered down Artists’ Alley with Natasha walking behind him, complaining loudly that she was going to punch the next full grown man in a My Little Pony t-shirt who asked if he could hug her.

He knew he would know Steve’s stall when he got there, because he would recognize his art anywhere, and he had a vague mental image of how he expected the guy to look. Once or twice the artist had done sketches of himself to go with little accompanying comics, and he generally depicted himself as almost comically scrawny and tiny, with a head too big for his body, a goofy large and pointed nose, and floppy blond hair.

'I can't do this,' Bucky muttered to Natasha as he peered down the alley, trying to catch sight of any drawings he recognized. 'What do I say to him? Oh my god, he's going to think I'm _such_ a fanboy.’

'Well, you are such a fanboy,' Natasha said reasonably, and then shook her head when Bucky looked stricken. She took him by the shoulders and straightened the epaulets on his costume, adjusting the leather straps calmly. 'Don't worry, James. He draws nerdy gay comics on the internet. He's a fanboy too. All you gotta do is tell him you're a massive geeky loser of a fan, get him to sign a thing, and ask if you can take a selfie with him.’

Bucky nodded, lifting up his thermoplastic arm unconsciously to try to adjust his mask. ‘Yeah,’ he said, and nodded. ‘Yeah, you’re right.’

'Course I am,' she replied breezily, before turning around to the guy dressed as Fluttershy and holding a 'free hugs' sign. ' _No,_ ' she snapped, and pointed off in the other direction as he walked away dejectedly.

Bucky glanced around, sighing. There really was no reason for him to be this nervous. He knew he had built up some vague, unrealistic expectations about this. You know, meeting the guy, hitting it off immediately, becoming best friends by the end of the day and maybe falling in love. Just some slight overbuilding of what was, in essence, destined to be a short lived, insignificant encounter with a guy who probably wasn’t _nearly_ as gorgeous and perfect as Bucky had built him up to be in his head, where he could get a photo with him, and post it to the forums later.

That was it. He just needed to lower his expectations. With a deep breath, he turned a corner, and that was when he saw it.

  
If it weren’t for the fact that Natasha was nuzzling her head in boredom between his shoulder blades and begging to go and get pizza after all this was over, he probably would have said time slowed down. Just a few stalls down, there was a large banner with the words _Hold Hands With the Devil_ printed in clear letters, and a collection of drawings and sketches pinned up in a style underneath that Bucky would recognize anywhere.

Sitting underneath them was a skinny guy with floppy blond hair that fell over his clear blue eyes. He had gorgeous red lips that were sucking at a straw in a bottle of Coke, and he had a plate of Neapolitan pizza in front of him. There wasn’t even a queue.

'I think that's him,' he whispered to Natasha in awe.

'Where the hell did he get pizza?' she replied, a lot louder than Bucky was speaking, and the guy who _must be Steve Rogers_ , looked up.

'Dominoes has a stall around the corner,' he called out to her, and then Bucky saw his face absolutely light up as their eyes met. 'Oh my god,' he said. ' _Oh my god,_ are you dressed as the Winter Soldier?!’

Bucky’s heart thudded to a stop in his chest, and he vaguely felt Natasha pat his shoulder as she moved away. ‘I’ll be back in ten minutes,’ she said, and vanished as if into thin air.

'Uh, yeah,' Bucky said, and walked up towards the stall on shaky legs. Steve was grinning widely and getting to his feet even before Bucky came up level to him, and in all the ways that Bucky had imagined this, he had never imagined Steve looking half as excited just to _see_ Bucky as he did right now. Something warm spread through his chest, and he smiled giddily behind the mask.

'That is amazing!' Steve said as he leaned out over the stall counter to get a better look at Bucky's costume. 'Seriously, did you make this?'

'Uh, yeah,' said Bucky again, and then shook his head. _Use your words_ , he reminded himself. ‘The arm is, um, thermoplastic, and the uniform I sewed together. Have, have you seen many people dressed up as your characters today?’

'Hell no,' Steve said, letting out a low whistle. 'You're the first. And probably the only. I can't believe you did this, you look _just_ like how I imagine him.’

Bucky laughed behind the mask, and brought up his non-covered arm to tug it off for a moment, suddenly feeling too hot. Amazingly, his nerves seemed to be dissipating fast, replaced by a feeling of warm excitement that only built in intensity as Steve’s lip caught between his teeth as Bucky’s face was revealed.

'Wow,' he said. 'Hot guy dresses up as my characters and shows up to Comic-Con to see me. I feel like some of my ridiculous fantasies are coming to life right now, not going to lie.'

Bucky let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. 'You're not the only one,' he replied.


End file.
